​I kept this review as spoiler-free as possible and marked the section you may wish to skip if you don't want anything spoiled at all. This review is not nostalgically biased as I watched the movie for the first time in 2017 just before writing this, neither I am a dedicated Miyazaki fan or have anything against his work.

The overall score of 6 means that I found it to be a fine movie. It had some issues that stopped me from really liking it when all's said and done, but it captured my imagination and I was not indifferent, nor did I dislike it.

--- INTRODUCTION
---

Just like some other Miyazaki movies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind features three dominant themes: pacifism (belief that people should coexist in peace), environmentalism (belief that people should coexist in harmony with their natural environment), and fascination with flight. Which are all really cool themes if you ask me. The key difference in this particular movie is the setting, which is a futuristic post-apocalyptic wasteland. This setting is beautiful and full of potential, however the way Miyazaki tells his environmentalist story doesn't suit this setting. This story suits the spirit world setting of Princess Mononoke much better.

--- THE BAD ---
(the function of Toxic Jungle, fantastical solutions in a sci-fi setting, Giant Warrior plot, the ending)

(1) The Toxic Jungle is probably the most important and interesting element in this story, and you will hear me praising it's beauty later on. But first, I have a few problems with it which I feel are the main reasons why I didn't enjoy the movie as much as I could:

- At least to me, the universe is portrayed as a sci-fi post-apocalyptic setting rather than a fantasy spirit universe of Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. The Toxic Jungle doesn't seem like a place for spirits and magic in this story, but yet turns out it is. The plot reveals are completely inconsistent with this sci-fi setting and throw everything realistic about it out of the window resorting to the same fantastical story Miyazaki told in Princess Monoke. I don't mind fantasy at all, but because the setting is set up as sci-fi, it felt like a cheap cop out. Like as if the author couldn't figure out a realistic way to explain what the Toxic Jungle actually is, how it works, and why it's worth living in harmony with, and thus resorted to a combination of mystical elements and incorrect depiction of ecology/evolution. Let me elaborate further.

*** MILD SPOILERS AHEAD. No plot events will be spoiled, but some information will be given on the nature of the Toxic Jungle. ***

- The Toxic Jungle has a human-centric agenda that doesn't follow evolutionary logic. We're shown a beautiful and complex forest ecosystem with huge biodiversity, which means it's completely healthy despite the name the Toxic Jungle. It's toxic for humans, yes, but it's a paradise for everything that lives in it, or otherwise it wouldn't be so strong and diverse. Then there's a plot twist and we're expected to believe that the Toxic Jungle is actually trying to "purify" the environment and alter it to a one more hospitable for humans. Excuse me, but this is just arrogant on top of being devoid of any evolutionary sense. Firstly, whatever makes the forest toxic for humans is exactly what makes this ecosystem work. The Toxic Jungle has adapted to the post-apocalyptic environment and now is thriving, it doesn't make any sense for it to want to change it back, as this would mean self-destruction.

- The Toxic Jungle is said to specifically purify water and soil, but people seem to be growing food just fine in the contaminated post-apocalyptic soil of the Valley of the Wind, so what exactly it's purifying is unclear in the first place.

- And lastly we have magical powers of the Ohm (large Toxic Jungle creatures), which for some reason can heal humans and communicate with humans telepathically. Even though their evolutionary purpose is to protect the Toxic Jungle by destroying entire human settlements at a cost of their own lives. These abilities would suit a powerful mystical forest spirit (like the Deer God) that can punish or help humans on a whim, but don't really make sense for an Ohm, which is an animal with a quite specific evolutionary purpose.

*** SPOILERS END ***

(2) I found the whole Giant Warrior (ancient biomechanical beings involved in the end of the world) subplot undeveloped and a little pointless in the end. It felt like it was introduced just to show off Giant Warriors from the manga (where I would hope they play a bigger role), but it didn't accomplish anything significant for the movie plot. It was very anti-climatic, actually, they way it all ended. I almost forgot about this whole subplot altogether when writing this review and thinking back about the movie. It's a shame, because the idea is very cool.

(3) The ending wasn't that great. It felt a little contrived to achieve the type of ending the author wanted, and made just to wrap things up as the time ran out to adapt any more of the manga story.

--- THE GOOD ---
(visuals, Ohm)

(1) The visuals are great and exceeded all my expectations for an old title. The animation is nice and fluid. More importantly, the backgrounds, the Toxic Jungle design, the technology, and flight scenes are probably what I liked about this movie the most. It's unique, creative, inspired, atmospheric, and it just works, as expected from Miyazaki.

(2) Especially the Ohm (large Toxic Jungle creatures). They are just awe inspiring. And I don't even like insects that much. But they are powerful and menacing, yet have a sense of wisdom and balance to them. I rooted for them all the way, even though they are killing people. The Ohm stampede is the scene that I've taken away with me and that will capture my imagination for a long time to come.

--- THANK YOU FOR READING ---
These are the main points I wanted to make that I felt might be different from what everybody else is saying and that were the most important for my personal enjoyment of this movie. Everything else was fine (sound, characters, etc.), it just didn't stand out to me as much as what I have discussed, and I didn't want to make this review too long.

--- INTRODUCTION ---
I decided to watch Yuki Yuna is a Hero after thoroughly enjoying Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, which opened my mind to what the magic girl genre could be and is one of the best series I've seen. In a nutshell, Yuki Yuna spectacularly failed at almost everything that I loved about Madoka Magica, but it had nothing to do with superficial similarities between the two shows, and everything to do with... well, a whole list of things right below:

--- THE BAD ---
(story, world building, characters, battles)

(1) The story is the worst part. It has numerous plot holes towards the climax of the show
when things are supposed to be revealed. There is also one notable example of a plot twist based on a completely illogical and uncharacteristic decision of one of the characters, which the authors attempted to frame in some kind of emotional reasoning but it really didn't work. It was a new experience for me: trying to watch events unfold that are based on a decision so absurd that it completely threw me out of the narrative. Other than that, the show just tries too hard to create drama and doesn't shy away from throwing all logic out of the window. Most notably the ending was a disaster. It has been pulled out of a hat with no explanation of what exactly happened, why, and how.

(2) There is very little world building, and the universe presented just simply doesn't make any coherent, believable sense. There is no depth to the sides of Good and Evil. The enemies just want to destroy the human world for no good reason and the forces of Good are also very ambiguous and manage to make even less sense than the enemies do. Saying that this universe didn't make an impact on me like some other fictional worlds did would be an understatement -- it would imply that the show at least ATTEMPTED to create some kind of interesting fictional world. But it didn't, rather it used the sci-fi / fantasy setting as a throw-away environment for forced drama which is the focus of the show.

(3) The show focuses heavily on the characters in a slice-of-life fashion, but the trouble is, the characters are very one-dimensional. Their biggest weakness is that the way they are portrayed often times completely ignores what humans are actually like and just shows one quality of their character in isolation over and over. For example, our main character is an overly optimistic "you're likely to succeed if you try", "everything is going to be great because we're the Hero Club and we have each other" type of character. She doesn't have another side where she behaves more human and shows fear, or anger at the tsundere's blatant rudeness, or can't cope with what's going on because she's just a little girl for crying out loud.

Some characters are better than others in execution, but even the better characters are still nothing special. They are unmemorable at best, and at worst they don't make sense and are hard to believe.

(4) The battles are very simplistic and boring. Characters just scream "Hero Punch!", "Girl Power!", or things even worse, like the Five Tenets of the Hero Club one by one while slaying things left and right. This was supposed to make these scenes emotionally charged, but it didn't work and just annoyed me. Moreover, the viewers have no idea how to tell power difference between heroes and enemies, and seeing our characters arbitrary winning or losing based on what the plot demands is predictable and not engaging.

The fairies did absolutely nothing, had no personalities, were neither cute nor anything else, and are the most bland and unnecessary dare I call them characters I've ever seen. The fact that one becomes a magic girl and a servant to a mysterious tree deity by activating an iPhone app says a lot about the amount of thought put into this show in general.

--- THE OKAY ---
(visuals, dub, the Hero Club, Fu)

(1) The art is fine. The fighting is not very exciting to begin with, but the visuals across the whole show look decent. Nothing you wouldn't come to expect from a 2014 show, but there's really nothing wrong with it either.

(2) The music and songs are meh, but I watched the dub and it was good. I particularly liked the performance of English voice actress of Togo.

(3) Before things went all mahou shoujo, the Hero Club the girls had in the first episode or two was cute. They were trying to help the community in whatever ways they could, and it was nice seeing them taking it seriously and trying to be little adults.

(4) I liked one of the girls, Fu. She's cool and not as plain as the rest of the cast, her motivations are easier to believe. Although that's before I stopped to consider the fact that at the age of 14 Fu has no parents or adult family members. On top, she's living alone with her younger sister acting as her caretaker and legal guardian. And apparently she's been doing that since the age of 12. But don't think too much about it.

--- THANK YOU FOR READING ---
I tried to make this review useful. If you have any feedback please feel free to message me.